Music: Melodies in a Safe

"Composing is like fishing," said the late Jerome Kern.
"You get a nibble, but you don't know whether it's a minnow or a
marlin until you reel it in." Writing quickly and easily. Kern
landed enough songs in his lifetime to serve 92 stage and 25 screen
productions, but few people outside the music trade knew that he also
piled up a surplus that was never published. Since Kern's death in
1945 at 60, the musical overflowsome 75 waltzes, ballads, rhythm
songs, tangos and beguineshas remained in a safe in the Manhattan
offices of Chappell & Co., his publishers.